This weekend’s celebrations of All Saints Day and All Souls Day invite us to consider what the Church calls “the Four Last Things”: Death, Judgment, Heaven and Hell. Every human being is destined, that is, created with the intent, to have a place in Heaven. Nonetheless, because we are given Free Will, we are able to choose to accept that place or to reject it.
At death, there is an experience of
an immediate encounter with God. In the
“moment” beyond time, we will know ourselves as God knows us and a personal
judgment will take place. Our earthly
life will be sifted to discern our orientation: toward God or toward ourselves
alone. God asks that we do His Will and
say by our lives, “Thy Will be done.”
Yet, because we are free and He is Just, He allows us to choose our own
will. In that case, the just judgment is
God’s saying to us “thy will be done.”
Hell, Scripture tells us (Matthew 25), is the eternal fire prepared for
the devil and his angels. Human beings
go there only by a free choice. God
gives us the passage on the train that we have bought the ticket for by our
manner of living and by our choices in the world.
It is unpopular these days to
mention Heaven and Hell, as if expression of these realities somehow takes away
from attention to the world around us.
Quite the contrary is true.
Believing in Heaven and Hell, we know that life has a goal, a purpose,
an aim that is beyond this world. As
Catholics, we know the Mercy of God in the face of judgment. If we are weak and sinful, but not turned
inward on ourselves completely, He has made provision for an encounter that
washes us clean so as to go into Heaven with the proper Wedding Garment, the
purity and transparency that is necessary to be there. We call this Mercy “Purgatory.” At the Last Judgment at the end of Time,
Purgatory will no longer be needed. All
that will remain are Heaven and Hell.
Note that Purgatory is a reality
that is always on the way to Heaven. If you
choose to “go to Hell,” you do not pass “Go,” you do not collect $200, and you
do not make a stop to say goodbye to your friends in Purgatory. The choice of “my will” over “God’s Will” is
the one-way ticket to Hell with no local stops.
The choice of “God’s Will” over “my will,” even if imperfect, is also a
one-way ticket to Heaven, but there is a possibility for most of us who will
need it of a purifying encounter that cleans out the pores and gets us ready
for the Fire of Love with which Heaven is always burning. Purgatory is prepared for human beings on the
way to the Kingdom.
The celebrations of All Saints and
All Souls also remind us of the Communion we share with all the Saints – those
in glory, those in Purgatory, and those on the face of the earth. We are able to pray for one another no matter
what side of the Mystery of Death we happen to be on. We on earth and the Saints in Glory pray for
those on earth and those in the process of purification. The “Holy Souls” in Purgatory can pray for us
and ask us to pray for them, especially using the means available to us and not
to them – the Mass and the Indulgences the Church offers through prayer and
pious activities that keep us close to the Church. All Souls Day helps us to keep them in mind.
As we consider the Communion of
Saints and the Four Last Things, let us put our Hope in God through the action
of Jesus Christ, Who is our Savior. When
death comes to us, we shall all discover that for those who believe, life is
changed, not ended. We are destined to
live forever in the Love of God. That is
Heaven.
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